15 June 2017

News Story: Japan's ruling bloc to force "conspiracy bill" into law

TOKYO, June 14 (Xinhua) -- Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's ruling coalition Wednesday decided to skip an upper house committee vote on a bill to criminalize the plotting of serious crimes.

The coalition used its majority on Wednesday evening in the upper house steering committee to vote to forego the judicial affairs committee where the bill was being debated.

The bill is almost certain to now be enacted as the ruling coalition will use its majority vote in a plenary session of the upper house, although the unorthodox move has outraged opposition parties who have vowed to use every possible means necessary to impede the bill's passage into law.

The tactic being used by the ruling camp, while technically permissible, runs against the conventional legislative process and lawmakers from the main Democratic Party said earlier on Wednesday that they will likely file a no-confidence motion against Abe's Cabinet.

With the bill being scrapped three times previously, opposition party heads maintain that the few semantic changes made to the final draft of the bill are not enough for them to sign off on its passage into law.